Catching up - Thursday Sept 19

 Been busy. I forgot to fill you all in on a happenstance that I experienced before leaving Santiago on Tuesday morning. Left with a couple hours on my hand I headed out the door of our hostel and ran right into the Cathedral. Watching people enter I decided I would visit the church. There was a security guard checking purses and bags at the door and he asked if I was there for mass. I said no, just to visit. He said you have to come back at 10:30. Okay I said, I’ll go to mass. In I went.

The funny thing about attending mass being said in another language (in this case Spanish) is that the responses that I usually say automatically in English totally fail me when the appropriate time hits. In other words, when it came time to say the Lord’s Prayer, because everyone was saying it in Spanish, I was unable to remember the words in English. Ya well that’s how my brain works, or doesn’t. 

The surprise came at the end of masss when they broke out the Botafumerio ! This was 9:30 am. I had understood that this special part was only done at the noon mass and then only sporadically. Well, I got lucky!

After mass we hiked it down to the train station and settled into our seats for the 4 hour ride to Madrid. 

Arrived safely and found our digs, settled in for the night.

Wednesday dawned sunny and beautiful and we had planned a long 11 hour trip via bus to Toledo and Segovia. It was a tour that included both English and mostly Spanish speakers. The tour company handled it pretty well and we visited all the high points. I didn’t realize it but these 2 cities were inhabited peacefully at one time by Christians, Jews and Muslims. How novel. Here is a photo taken from a pano viewpoint that shows examples of all 3 houses of worship.

Of course, eventually the King of Spain (who was Christian) had to kick the Muslims and Jews out😩. In the words of Rodney King “why can’t we all just get along”. Somethings never change😢

I can’t pretend to remember all of what the tour guides told us but here are a couple of highlights.

This is the 1000 year old Roman aqueduct built to carry water from some river the name of which I never got to the city of Seqovia. Amazingly it was built stone upon stone without any “glue” in between so that is one stone was removed, they would all collapse. Still there. 

This fellla had something to do with kicking out the Christians I think. His name is Juan somebody

Here is the palace of the king at Segovia

Pretty humble, huh?

There is a connection here in Segovia to the Camino de Santiago as this particular path starts in Madrid, goes through Segovia and joins up with the Frances at Saghun. 

And a camino I just found out about, taken by St Teresa of Ávila for 20 years runs through this town. I will have to do more research on this walk which has nothing to do with St James:

There was so much information given by such hard working and informed guides but I’m afraid I would embarrass myself if I tried to repeat it here. Suffice it to say, the tour was worth the $43 charge.

The only negative part of the day was when we got on the bus for our 1.5 trip from Toledo to Segovia it was stifling HOT. We all objected loudly since the vents did not appear to be working. The bus driver ignored us so we sweltered for 1/2 hour before a young man whose name I did not get, figured out the trick to turning on the vents. He was resounding applauded and named our hero. One older man eventually talked to the bus driver and while he didn’t make a scene, his body language told all of us that he was giving the driver the what for. 

Alls well, we made it home, just slightly overheated and ready for a glass of wine and bed.